Justice Department withheld and removed some Epstein files related to Trump

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/24/nx-s1-5723968/epstein-files-trump-accusation-maxwell

The Justice Department has withheld some Epstein files related to allegations that Trump sexually abused a minor, an NPR investigation finds. It also removed some documents from the public database where accusations against Jeffrey Epstein also mention Trump.

Some files have not been made public despite a law mandating their release. These include what appears to be more than 50 pages of FBI interviews, and notes from conversations with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago when she was a minor.

NPR reviewed multiple sets of unique serial numbers appearing before and after the pages in question, stamped onto documents in the Epstein files database, FBI case records, emails and discovery document logs in the latest tranche of documents published at the end of January. NPR's investigation found dozens of pages that appear to be catalogued by the Justice Department but not shared publicly.

628 points · 66 comments · view on lemmy.world

66 Comments

macaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 119 pts · 166d (8 replies)

Congress should hold the Justice department in contempt.

hogmomma@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 165d (7 replies)

Honesty asking, to what end?

ProfessorScience@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 165d (1 reply)

Even if nothing comes of it, it'd be better than doing nothing. Congress should do what they can, not just roll over.

Maeve@kbin.earth · 4 pts · 165d

Unless they're involved...

macaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 165d (1 reply)

Congress authorized the release of the Epstein files. Not some of them, but all of them. Congress has authority to hold the executive branch to account. They should exercise those powers to ensure their mandate is fulfilled. Anything less is capitulating to an authoritarian regime.

Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 pts · 164d

They passed a law to do it. Are you going to follow that law, or your boss and cult leader who can also make you immune to that and any other law?

Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 165d

The death penalty.

village604@adultswim.fan · 5 pts · 165d (1 reply)

Well, if they have the power to remove the heads of the organization, that's a good start.

duncan_bayne@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 164d

Not sure how you mean that but I support either interpretation.

mrmisses@lemmy.world · 61 pts · 166d (11 replies)

We know

gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world · 39 pts · 166d (10 replies)

At the risk of quoting Junior Soprano, no you didn't know it, they just told you

NPR reviewed multiple sets of unique serial numbers appearing before and after the pages in question, stamped onto documents in the Epstein files database, FBI case records, emails and discovery document logs in the latest tranche of documents published at the end of January. NPR's investigation found dozens of pages that appear to be catalogued by the Justice Department but not shared publicly.

You may know of other investigations showing very similar things but this is new

CoffeeSoldier@sh.itjust.works · 19 pts · 165d (2 replies)

I think we knew like we knew Eddie Spaghetti liked to eat spaghetti before anyone even told us that about Eddie.

gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 165d

That's fair but at the same time a bunch of reporters are busting their asses to run down all of Eddie's lies and that work deserves some attention

lka1988@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 165d

I think a better phrasing would be "I'm not surprised by this"

glimse@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 165d (5 replies)

I've been putting off watching the Sopranos for over a decade (for no particular reason - I DO want to see it) but that line weirdly might have sold me on it

sturmblast@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 165d (1 reply)

You really should just watch it

Maeve@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 165d

And The Family Business

gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 165d (2 replies)

Yeah, I really can't overemphasize how much of a petty insecure asshole the character who said it was, but the delivery of it is hilarious

Also, as someone who's watched it, I have some mixed feelings about some of the narrative choices and implied messages in that show, but it really is a master course on dissecting the hypocritical and superficial psychology of mobsters, which I feel like this administration and all of its goons demonstrate constantly

glimse@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 165d

I will be watching it like I watch classic cinema. The formula has since been refined but it was the first of its kind so it has some freshman fumbles.

Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 165d

Mobsters indeed. I wonder, if the Mexican army swooped in and killed the head of the MAGA cartel, would we see the kind of violence in our streets as Mexico is having now? I mean, they're certainly well-armed enough but they are also lazy Americans. They'd be like, "can I go down to Home Depot and hire some Mexicans to do it for me?"

(Which tbf is pretty much what I'm doing now with this speculation)

artyom@piefed.social · 0 pts · 164d

No, we do know, because Bondi told us so. She said there were 6M pages, and that they only released ~3.5M.

sturmblast@lemmy.world · 53 pts · 165d (11 replies)

Nothing says guilty like a coverup

D_C@sh.itjust.works · 20 pts · 165d (2 replies)

No. Noooooo, he's just undercover. That's all. He's trying to take them down from the inside. Just you wait, he'll drain that swamp any minute now!!!

EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 165d

Just give it two weeks, two weeks from now.

Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org · 2 pts · 164d

He's trying to take them down from the inside.

From the inside of an underaged girl, maybe.

Does that make blowing bubba collecting evidence?

BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 10 pts · 165d

It's not covering up a crime, it's just that the truth is complicated, and the citizens can't understand it. They're protecting us, it's for our own good.

Edit: I decided I better add /s, before someone thinks that was actually a serious statement, which it would be for MAGAs.

bizzle@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 165d (1 reply)

It's like they're not even trying, it's insulting really like how stupid do they think we are

Bwaz@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 165d

It's even more insulting how little they care.

redsand@infosec.pub · 7 pts · 165d (4 replies)

Speaking of coverups, the Franklin Scandal from 88 sure feels familiar (thumbnail is clickbait to appease the algorithm) coverup starts with a plane crash about halfway through and the bodies keep dropping until around 92: https://youtu.be/a2lvo38u4ds

Early reports on Epstein's trafficing start in 94

MartianHills@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 165d (1 reply)

That was a wild, disturbing ride. Let me down a rabbit hole to John David Norman and his child abuse network. Prosecutors decided to settle for Norman instead of pursuing his client list, which included some high-profile individuals. Also connected to at least two serial killers.

redsand@infosec.pub · 4 pts · 165d

Oh yeah they were hunting people too. And eating them. These current files are dark. Rabbit holes everywhere

sturmblast@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 165d

Yeah, interesting..

Maeve@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 165d

For some reason that made me think of Jeff Gannon. Did he claim he was a victim of abuse as a child?

LostSoul8765@lemmy.world · 39 pts · 165d (10 replies)
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UncleMagpie@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 165d

There was no Fox News, Facebook or Joe Rogan when watergate happened and no citizens united yet so there was a shared concept of reality in the country.

threshold_dweller@lemmy.today · 17 pts · 165d
Maeve@kbin.earth · 6 pts · 165d (1 reply)

Or a BJ in the oval office by a naïve young intern?

winkerjadams@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 165d

Or a tan suit lmao. The standards aren't even double, they are astronomical

njm1314@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 164d

Specifically because this is what Roger Ailes and his conservative friends created Fox News and the conservative media sphere to prevent. It's so crazy that it's worked so well for them. After Watergate happened they sat around together and came up with ideas to make it so they would never have to face consequences for their crimes again. They identified media coverage of Watergate, correctly as a thing that shifted public opinion against Richard Nixon. They never wanted public opinion to go against their guy again no matter how heinous their crimes. So they created Fox News and they created all the other conservative spheres specifically to stop public opinion from shifting in that way. It is so brilliant and so fucking evil.

knexcar@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 165d (4 replies)

It is? I see the Epstein files all over Lemmy and endlessly posted on friends’ social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc)

LostSoul8765@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 164d
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njm1314@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 164d (2 replies)

Thats an extremely small bubble.

knexcar@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 163d (1 reply)

But even if it’s small, isn’t it an accurate representation of what people as a whole are talking about?

Besides, I know my friends in real life and they won’t shut up about it so it’s not just confined to Lemmy.

njm1314@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 163d

Absolutely no reason to think so.

MushuChupacabra@piefed.world · 33 pts · 165d

This is known as Obstruction of Justice in the civilized world.

santa@sh.itjust.works · 28 pts · 165d (2 replies)

I mean. Sue them. I’m not sure saying they broke the law over and over again is going to do anything substantive.

village604@adultswim.fan · 13 pts · 165d (1 reply)

The federal government has to give you permission to sue them.

Sovereign Immunity is an English common law thing, so it's not even US only.

IamSparticles@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 165d

Yeah... best we can do is contempt of congress.

CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 165d

I would so love to see Blondi in prison over this. Same with Pedonald, of course.

Reactionary centrists in the Murc's Law media would say that wanting to see justice meted out for pedos and pedo-protecters means that someone has "Trump Derangement Syndrome".

ExtremeDullard@piefed.social · 15 pts · 165d (5 replies)

Yes, but... the Dow!

jballs@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 165d (4 replies)
FauxLiving@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 165d (3 replies)

It's over 50,000!

Nastybutler@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 165d

Correction, it's over $50,000.

Why are you laughing?

EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 165d

Ara ara not anymore

jballs@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 165d

50 thou*

hesh@quokk.au · 14 pts · 166d

Considering there's not a single email to or from him in the files... yeah, we know.

U7826391786239@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 166d (1 reply)
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ExtremeDullard@piefed.social · 3 pts · 165d

Surely you mean lock-her room...

NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 165d

Yeah, we fucking know.

Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 165d

Traitors should be executed. Capital punishment.

IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.wtf · 5 pts · 165d

They say the cover up is always worse than the crime but I don't think that applies in this case.

trongod_requiem0432@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 164d

I mean... is anyone still surprised by this?

The U.S.A. are governed by a pedophile rapist and they don't go tear and shoot shit up. So the majority of them is fine with this.

Formfiller@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 165d

Aren’t they archived?

santa@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 165d (1 reply)

Department of Jeffery Epstein (DOJ)

Eximius@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 165d

You mean DOJ[G]E ?

H1AA6329S@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 165d

Well, no one is surprised, isn't

Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 165d

Some MORE*

Maeve@kbin.earth · 2 pts · 165d

No! 🙄

LoafedBurrito@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 164d

I mean, we all know they are breaking the law daily and donald trump has threatened them all with death if they don't scrub his name from every file.

I really wish the conservative party didn't just flop over like a possum for a horrible dictator, but they are desperate for control and this was their only way to get revenge on democrats and neutral people.